Chapter Ten

Dean announces, "I don't believe in psychics," and leans back in his black leather chair, tossing a paperweight up and down in the air.

Castiel looks at him from his corner, where he's been leaning against the wall for the past thirty minutes. "You believe in angels, but you don't believe in psychics?" His voice rings skeptical.

"Who says I believe in angels?" demands Dean.

Castiel suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, despite the fact that Dean isn't looking at him and hasn't for a while now. Still, old habits die hard and OBIT subjects do not roll their eyes. They also don't speak out of turn, but Castiel has an inkling that Dean rather likes it when he does that. He's learned the hard way that Dean is an entirely different being than the men he's used to. "Well, you are working on a case concerning the species. And you're part of a highly selective few that were told about them."

Dean twists in his chair and points the paperweight at him as though he's spoken a vital truth. "There you have it. Ten out of ten says government conspiracy."

"That," says Castiel, "is completely ludicrous."

"Still better than Eminem," says Dean in what is an obviously joking voice.

Castiel stares at him.

"You're right, that was horrible. I'm ashamed. The psychic is a much better joke than that'll ever be."

"You are such a confusing man," Castiel tells him. "And if you don't believe in angels, then why are we consulting a psychic that you also don't believe in to find out where they're being held?"

"Because," says Dean, back to tossing the paperweight aimlessly. He spins his chair in a circle and throws the paperweight up and somehow manages to still catch it, timing the action perfectly. "My handler says I have to, and I do what my handler says. Also, I'm getting paid for it. Also… We have no other leads. Because Gabriel was a little shit and so was Balthazar and so was Raphael. Also, angels are dicks."

"Also," says Castiel, "it's because you secretly think she might be legitimate."

"Why can't you say legit like everyone else?"

"I can find no legitimate reason to shorten that word," he says primly.

"Prick."

"So far being called your equal has consisted of having my language under constant scrutiny and being called various male body parts and I am experiencing difficulty finding any benefits to this whole 'equality' thing."

"Being called various male body parts and having your language under constant scrutiny is the benefit," says Dean, sounding affronted and pausing in his antics once again to look over at Castiel. "What else is there?"

"Your humor frightens me."

"Ditto to that trenchcoat."

"And the psychic says… no to quitting your jobs as FBI agents and starting up a talk show," says a dry voice from the doorway of the office. "Although you're not doing such a smashing job with the FBI thing either, so maybe it's to the streets for the both of you."

Both Dean and Castiel jerk in surprise, Dean fumbling with the paperweight, barely catching it, and Castiel pushing off the wall to stand straight as they stare at a cuttingly gorgeous woman wearing black sunglasses and a challenging smirk. Castiel is immediately reminded of a female Gabriel. "Can't see your faces, but from your voices it sounds as though you could charge a pretty price. Especially if you pair up."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" asks Dean in a mildly annoyed tone. It would be worse, Castiel knew, if she hadn't been at least an eight on Dean's shallow scale of attractiveness; as it is, the tone of voice falls somewhere between when Castiel drinks the last cup of coffee and when he tells Dean to wear a seatbelt.

"Dean, I think she's the psychic," he says cautiously, respectfully dipping his head before her comment catches up to him. "Are you blind?"

"Castiel," says Dean sharply, but the woman holds up a hand.

"There is someone here… who I feel strongly." She turns her face towards Castiel and a small smile lands on her lips, less caustic than before. "Yes. I'm blind. The blind psychic - quite the cliche, don't you think?"

"I'm sorry," Castiel tells her.

"What's your name?"

"Castiel Novak."

"Ah," she says, like this means something to her. "The young soldier."

He looks to Dean, mystified, and only finds a narrowed-eyed, suspicious gaze locked on the psychic.

"What about you?" she says, now turning her head towards Dean. "Got a name, sweetheart?"

"Winchester," says Dean gruffly.

She smiles slowly. "Got a first name, Winchester?"

Dean shifts in his chair and then throws his paperweight once, twice. "Dean."

"Mind leading me to a chair, Dean?"

It's a ploy, and Castiel knows it - and he's sure Dean sees it too, because if she'd managed to find her way all the way to Dean's office, surely she'd be able to find herself a chair that's two feet in front of her, blind or not. But Dean doesn't say anything, merely gets up and walks around the desk and holds out his arm, allowing her to grip it tightly - and Castiel frowns as her hand slides up his forearm, slowly as though she's mapping out the muscles there.

"These chairs are terrible," she states as soon as she's sat down, and she seems to enjoy making them both feel uncomfortable, her grin growing. "Now, you two boys got an angel problem?"

"I'm sorry, did you have a name?" asks Dean. "Or is Blind Psychic good enough?" He seems to be taking the prostitute-comment a tad bit harshly, but then, anyone commenting on Dean's sense of humor (other than Castiel, it appears) is always taking a risk.

"Oh, sorry - I would have thought your handler would have told you that when she arranged the meeting. Pamela Barnes," she says, leaning back in her chair. "But I've been called a few other things in my day as well."

"Is accurate one of them?" says Dean.

Pamela laughs softly. "Well, I guess we'll just have to see about that."

"Let's get started, shall we?" Dean glances once at Castiel and then moves his chair to the edge of his desk, flipping open the file they've collected. "We know there are several angels being held for their Grace somewhere in the northeastern United States. The way we know this is due to a recent OD patient who had taken Grace only hours old - and because the product was delivered in Michigan, we can assume that it was siphoned somewhere either in Michigan itself or in one of the surrounding states."

"Well, I'll need something that's physically connected to the angels," says Pamela, tilting her head to the side. "What are you looking for? A pinpoint location?"

"If you can manage that."

"It's an artform, not an exact science," and now her voice is crisper, more to the point. Fun and games are over, it appears. "Sometimes I get a location. Sometimes I get something different. I can't pick and choose."

"Convenient," mutters Dean under his breath and Castiel can immediately tell she's noticed by the way her head turns just the slightest amount and her lips turn down.

"Ms. Barnes," he begins, hesitating as her attention switches to him. "I - know it's difficult, controlling your gift. Not many have it, and it can often be as much of a curse as a gift."

Dean is staring at him, eyebrows slowly lifting, but Pamela looks somewhat consoled and that's what matters. "It's just - important. You see. For us to to get to these kidnapped angels as quickly as possible. Because there is simply no way for them to be drained as much as they are and survive for long. Their Grace takes far too long to regenerate, if it does at all, and…" Castiel trails off, losing his steam. "And your help is greatly appreciated."

The room is quiet for a moment and then Pamela nods. "Thank you. It may be difficult for me to control the Sight, but there is a reason your handler thought to call me. I am one of the best there is."

"Let us hope so," says Dean, sounding less aggravated than before. He almost looks… subdue, which has to be a first. "For the angels' sake."

Another beat. "The object?" Pamela prompts.

Dean and Castiel exchange looks and she seems to sense this, shifting and then straightening in her chair. "You do have an object for me, correct?"

"Well," says Castiel, but Dean waves him off.

"Yes, yes. It's just - well," and he makes a face before bending under the desk and there's the sound of scuffling - and a curse as he shifts too quickly and knocks his head on the bottom of the desk and then he's up and placing a shoe gingerly in the middle of the desk. "There it is," he says, after a second, seemingly remembering she can't see.

"Describe it," she demands.

Dean sighs. "It's - well - it's a - shoe." A pause. "My shoe, that is."

Pamela says, "That explains the smell then," and Castiel instantly likes her that much more.

"You wanna talk smell, you should smell Cas's morning breath," says Dean, earning an instant glower from the seventeen-year-old.

"Sure thing," says Pamela and grins coyly. "Tomorrow morning work for you?"

Castiel's starting to like her less. Dean's grin says the opposite. "She's quick," he tells Castiel.

"Not as quick as prepubescent pretty boy over there will be," says Pamela, jerking her head towards Castiel who immediately wants to melt into the floor.

Dean chokes, flustered. "All right, all right, enough talk. Back to the - ack, okay. It's a bit complicated from here. See, we had a… test vial of the product. The same one believed to be taken by our OD patient. Unfortunately, there were a few. Incidents. That led to its destruction and - well, yeah, I stepped on it, so the shoe's covered in which should be enough for a psychic read, right?"

He says this last part all very fast; Castiel's eyes are glued to the hot flush creeping up his neck. He doesn't know if he's ever seen Dean flush before. Interesting.

Pamela looks disgruntled, an odd look after all her smirks. "You're asking me for an exact location when the object I'm working with may have been touched by Grace that might be from the angels we're searching for?"

Dean rubs his neck. "... Well, Charlie did say you were the best."

"You're asking for a goddamn miracle, honey," says Pamela, and she pushes up her sunglasses for a moment to rub at her eyes, the cloudy whiteness making Castiel's head tilt for a moment before they disappear from sight again. "God," she sighs, "do I deserve a whiskey and a strong man."

Dean and Castiel glance at each other with solemn looks and then Castiel mouths you first. Dean's reaction is almost enough to make Castiel break into laughter but he's had too much training to allow that - instead, he merely ducks his head to hide his smile and then straightens up and looks back at Pamela. "Well?" he asks. "Can you manage it?"

"I can try," she says, looking grimly determined.

"Do you need the lights dimmed?" asks Dean after he's gotten himself under control. "Candles? Special sigils written in blood on the walls?"

She gives him an unamused look. "Well, for one, I'm going to need you stop your smartass comments, Agent Winchester."

Dean makes a face. "Anything else?"

"Yes," she says and then grips her chair and drags it up just the perfect amount so that she's close to the desk. "Join hands."

Dean and Castiel look at each other again and then, slowly, they grip hands and Castiel holds one of Pamela's, her other one moving to rest lightly on top of the shoe.

"Don't make a sound," she says in a warning voice, and all goes silent. "Close your eyes."

He knows he should be paying attention - but Dean's hand is warm in his, just the tiniest bit damp, and Castiel knows his own hand is getting sweaty from nerves - but that doesn't seem to ruin it at all. His eyes are closed and he sees them holding hands walking down a road together - holding hands across a table as they wait for their food - sees them holding hands as -

"Focus," snaps Pamela, making Castiel jump, eyes flying open. "No distracting thoughts."

"You can hear our thoughts?" whispers Castiel, terrified.

"I can sometimes sense the moods in the room and if they're not calm, then it's easy for me to get distracted," she says. "And both of you idiots are completely off task. No wonder these assholes haven't been caught yet."

Castiel pointedly does not look at the man next to him and instead focuses his thoughts hard on justice.

"That's better," says Pamela after a moment, and the room goes deadly silent again. Castiel can hear two separate sets of breathing beside him and he closes his eyes again, feeling his heartbeat gradually begin to slow as the air in the room thickens.

And then Pamela takes in a sharp breath and it begins.

"I invoke, conjure, and command you," she says. Her hand tightens against Castiel's. "I invoke, conjure, and command you. Reveal your secrets to this circle."

Nothing happens, and then she takes another harsh breath and: "I invoke, conjure, and command you. Reveal your location to this circle. Reveal your names. Reveal -"

She goes stricken, and when Castiel cautiously opens his eyes, he sees her arching against her seat, head thrown back, the veins in her neck taut against her skin. "I - see - it," she gasps out, and then she jerks her head wildly and her glasses go flying off. Her hand is shaking against Castiel's - her skin is starkly pale - and her eyes are wide open and glassy white. Tears stream down her face, but she doesn't seem to notice. "Bodies. So many of - them."

"Bodies?" demands Dean in a low voice, leaning across the table and gripping her forearm with his. She shudders. "What? How many? Where are they?"

"They are -" She sucks in a harsh breath and then chokes. "Naked. Ravaged. One is little."

"Pamela," says Dean in a low, furious voice. "Look around."

"Signs. Signs on them," she whispers, horrified. "Pen. Pen. Pen."

"Cas, get her a fucking pen," snaps Dean, and Castiel breaks his aghast gaze away from her and scrabbles around to jerk open a drawer. He fumbles for a moment, heart racing as Pamela shakes and moans, and then he's ripping the drawer right out of its socket and dropping to the floor, springing back up a moment and shoving a pen into her clawed hands.

"Paper," says Cas, and then spies a pad of paper and shoves it underneath her waiting hand.

She makes a strangled noise, her eyes darting back and forth in her head as though seeing something that's not there - and then she drags the pen against the paper, carving deep strokes into with shaking hands.

"Enochian," says Castiel.

Dean says, "Fuck. Shit. What's she writing, Cas?"

"I can't tell," he says in a ragged voice, planting his hands on the desk and feeling his stomach go weak. "I don't - it's -"

"Dean Winchester," says Pamela abruptly in a bone-chilling voice, dropping her pen and looking straight at Dean, straight in the eye.

Castiel can't breathe.

"What?" asks Dean, looking between Castiel and Pamela. "What? What is it? I'm - tell me, what is it? What do you need?"

"No," says Castiel in a hollow voice. "Dean Winchester."

"What?" demands Dean loudly, slamming his hands down on top of the desk.

Castiel shakes his head once, unbelieving. "You said these were on the bodies?" he asks Pamela, his stomach clenching hard. "Like - written on them?"

"No," says Pamela, and she finally looks like she's back to herself. "Not written. Carved."

"Carved," repeats Castiel weakly.

"Why were you saying my name?" Dean says again.

"Because," says Castiel, and the words lodge in his throat, unable to get it out. "That's what the Enochian is. Your name."

"Carved on them," says Dean, and he looks like he's about to throw up. They all do. "My name. Carved on them. How - many?"

"Six," says Pamela, and shakes her head, looking raw and uncomposed as she reaches up to wipe her face. She's crying. "If those were the angels you're looking for, you're too late."

"It's -" says Dean, and he puts his face in his hands for a moment, shoulders tight as he seems to draw everything within himself - he is a tightly wound spring, he is a hurricane in a bottle - and then all of a sudden he's up out of his chair and knocking it into the wall without noticing it, shouting, "God damn it!" before storming to the door. He rips it open and then slams it shut on his way out, the frame rattling loudly.

The air feels heavier without Dean there.

"Pamela?" says Castiel quietly after a moment.

She tilts her head towards him silently.

"You said one was - little?"

"They were all too young," she says lowly. "But. Yes. One of them looked… under ten."

Immediately, he wishes he didn't know. Hadn't asked. Wasn't picturing it. But there it is, ingrained in his mind forever - and he can only imagine how Pamela must feel, having seen it firsthand. "I'm sorry that you had to see that."

"I'm sorry that it had to happen," she says, and stands up, not hesitating a stroke as she turns and heads for the door. He feels empty inside, devastated. It is only when he doesn't hear the door open and close that he looks up, surprised to see her standing at the doorknob. "Do your job right, Castiel. And take down those sick motherfuckers."

He doesn't know what to say, but she doesn't seem to expect anything - merely nods and then leaves, the door clicking shut quietly behind her.

And Castiel is alone, staring down at the Enochian symbols used to spell out Dean's name - wondering what it all means, wondering how they will possible defeat this endless mystery.

"Hey, it's Sam. Sorry I couldn't get to the phone; leave a voicemail and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

"They're using kids. Fucking angel kids to get their fucking Grace from and then fucking murdering them."

He's sitting in the Impala by himself, head pressed against the top of the steering wheel, eyes tightly shut and body hunched over as if maybe if he shrinks down enough, the world will cease to exist.

"Sam, I don't know what to do about it. My name. My fucking name carved into their chests - why the hell would my name be there? What is it, some kind of message? Some sort of sign that I'm next? Or maybe it's a mockery - another kid's life that I couldn't save because I'm too goddamn slow, too bad at my fucking job to get there quick enough."

It feels like he's about to snap the phone in half - like he's about to snap in half, just break into two. There's nowhere to go from this, nowhere to turn. And it's not just the dead and captured angels that are doing this to Dean - no, it's the millions of people that are wasting their time and money and capabilities on the fucking drug, getting high and getting addicted and not giving a shit about anything else in the meantime.

"And then - Cas, God," he groans into the phone, rolling his head from side to side against the wheel before falling still again. "What the hell's wrong with me, Sam? As if he hasn't had enough bad luck in his life - now I can't stop thinking about him - and it's so hard when half the time he doesn't act his age at all, but like he's seen more shit than half the people my age -" He lifts his head up just barely and then thunks it down against the steering wheel.

"Sam, I don't know what to do about this case, and I wish you were here to figure it out. Or I could at least talk to you. Answer the damn phone sometime." A strangled, choked laugh.

"I guess I know what you'd say. You'd tell me at least we managed to save one life, the girl - but we didn't, it was all Cas. And then you'd say we got the lead when we found out they were using siphoned Grace. But - again, just Cas. What the hell am I doing, Sam? I'm fucking - useless," he wants to curl up as he says it and never leave the Impala, never leave this safe place talking on the phone with his little brother. There are people to save, but someone else can save them, and things to do, but he isn't capable of doing them anyway.

"You should have seen him fighting. So much better than I expected. I - honestly, I underestimated him so much. Which makes it even harder to stay away, God. He's like a force of nature, something I'll never fully understand. If anyone gets this case open, it'll be him, I swear -"

Beep.

He presses his eyes shut and then opens them up and clicks on his phone, dialing Sam's number again -

"Voicebox full."

"God dammit," he mutters, and clicks his phone off again.

It is a long time before he gets up the will to move.

It doesn't take long for Garth's intel to come through a second time, and that, along with some reports of suspicious activity in a small town just outside of Warren, Michigan, gives Dean and a group of agents the go-ahead to make the long trip up to investigate. It is a short search through the dreary town and then Dean is watching as Agent Wright throws his weight against a crowbar to open up the door to a dilapidated old house, grunting hard from the effort. It wrenches open with a loud creak and then the group of four steps inside, one after another, each one of them repressing the urge to gag as the smell hits them. Their guns are up only as a formality because everyone is nearly positive the scene is empty of anything directly Grace-related.

"Rancid," comments Agent Mills, the only one who's reached up to cover her nose with her flannel sleeve. After a moment though, she seems to gather herself and draws her hand down, expression hard and carefully blank. "Bodies."

Wright looks hardened and furious, despite being younger than Dean. "They fucking left the bodies here of us to find. Fucking pieces of shit."

Dean wants to walk right back out of the decrepit house, wants to find the sick bastards that did this - all to send a message to him - and tear them apart like he did to Alastair - he takes a deep breath to steady himself and then immediately regrets it as the sick, sweet stench of death fills his nose and mouth, clinging to the back of his throat.

It's worse when he sees Castiel looking around the room, expression closed off and eyes clinical. Like he's seen worse, expected worse. Like the rank smell is familiar. "Come on," says Dean gruffly, and pushes past the others as he picks his way through the building.

Trash is everywhere; the blinds are all shut and it's dark and filthy inside, the smell growing stronger as they forage deeper into the building. There are needles everywhere along with rotting food, ripped apart clothes, broken lamps shattered on the floor.

And then - they stumble upon them, in the room farthest from the front door, and Agent Mills nearly steps on one before she staggers back and throws out a hand. "Shit," she says.

Wright stares at them with a horrified expression for all of thirty seconds and then turns on his heel and leaves the room in a rush. They hear the sound of vomiting a moment later, but Dean knows that it'll be lost in this mess of a house, just another stain on the otherwise bloodied carpet.

The bodies – there are six of them, just like Pamela said – are half-naked and crude, a blatant disfigurement in the natural state of the world. This should have never happened, this should never have existed. These six lives should have taken such very different paths then this one – this one in which all of them ended up in a room together with Enochian letters carved into their decaying skin. He can't read Enochian and he's glad he can't, couldn't bear to be able to read his name stretched out over the bodies of six strangers and one of them is – one of them is a child – holy fuck, one of them is breathing.

"Cas," he manages, hand flying to Castiel's elbow and dragging him forward in a clawed grip. "Cas – look, that one –"

"Impossible," breathes Castiel, and it should be.

Because it's taken them hours to get up here and anyone with that amount of blood loss should have died almost immediately – and they still haven't moved, frozen in shock, before Castiel gently untangles himself from Dean's grip and moves forward. He doesn't hesitate, goes right up to the little boy who is unconscious but still barely breathing, and kneels down right next to him.

A few seconds later, Dean hears an unfamiliar tongue roll off Castiel's lips – faint but musical, like he's singing to the boy. It reaches into Dean like nothing ever has before and grips something he has never felt – an emotion he cannot identify, and he realizes he's on the verge of crying. The room feels overflowing with an eternal sorrow and he tries to push it away, struggles against it.

"Castiel," says Dean, too loudly. "We have to get him help. We have to –" he turns to Jody and sees that she's crying silently, tears streaming down her face. "Call someone, we have to fucking call –"

"He's dying, Dean," says Castiel, interrupting his unfamiliar tongue to look up at Dean. One of his hands is resting on the boy's hair, slipping in between dark strands. "He's lost too much. They won't get here in time. He's almost gone."

Dean can feel something hot prick at his eyes and something dark twist his stomach simultaneously – can't he save anyone? Why does he always have to be too late and not late enough? It is Dean Winchester's fucking curse to watch the innocent die before his eyes, again and again, always unable to help just when it matters most? It is his job to save people and yet it always seems to end with him standing by helplessly and watching death wrap its cold hands around young lives.

As he watches – as they all watch, Castiel softly returning to his unfamiliar tongue – the little boy twitches and then shudders and then takes in one last gasp, body seizing up and his arm jerks out in a sharp flail before it drops back to the floor with a sickening thud that cuts right through Dean. He falls still.

A little boy. Younger than ten. Shirt ripped around him carelessly and chest carved wide open, his eyes halfway shut. Castiel stops speaking, and the silence that follows is more complete than anything Dean's ever felt in his entire life. Why? Why would this happen? Why brutally murder six angels if they were using them for Grace? Why Dean's name? Fucking why?

Fury is the only emotion Dean feels capable of in that moment. It overwhelms him, strangles him, erupts behind his eyes in a flash of red. He wants blood – wants to feel the blood of his enemies as he sinks his hands into their entrails and rip them out slowly, wants to feel the life drain from the sick bastards that did this – wants to see the light leave their eyes. And then wants to cut out their eyes a moment later and -

"This is useless," he snarls, shaking with uncontained rage. "This is all goddamn fucking pointless."

He wants someone to contradict him and when no one does, spins around and walks out. Leaving angry is beginning to become a bit of a recurring subject for him, it seems. They spend another hour digging through the house for evidence – except no one's willing to dig too deeply and everyone wants to avoid the room with the bodies – and then the crime scene attendants arrive to collect the bodies and take them to the morgue. Everyone is eager to leave.

"Complete waste of time," Dean declares it on the way back.

"It wasn't," Castiel contradicts quietly, from the backseat, and no one else speaks for the rest of the drive.

That night, Dean's the one waking up screaming. All of them – everyone he's ever had a relationship with, everyone he's merely talked to, everyone who's ever come in contact with him – stretch out before his eyes in a long line, all of them wearing his name carved deep into their skin, all over. Then they all wake up simultaneously, calling out to him in a foreign language – and he knows, in the dream, that they are asking for his blood – calling out his name and demanding he pay for their deaths. He can smell the stench of death around all of them, sickly sweet and pungent in his nose. Their dead eyes follow his every movement, and Jo is the very first in line. When he looks at her, she smiles, her lips pulling apart in a terrifying grimace.

"Dean," she says, the only one speaking in english.

The dread and anger and revulsion from before are twisting hard in the pit of his stomach as he stumbles back away from them, struggling not to cry. "I didn't do it!" he shouts uselessly at them. "I didn't kill you - it wasn't me! I didn't put my name there!"

His shouts are futile and they keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. Jo is reaching for him with decayed hands, twisted into claws, and he knows when she catches him, she will make him pay.

He jolts awake with the yell still coming out of his mouth.

Castiel is at his side in a second, reaching out a consoling hand wordlessly, and he doesn't seem to think anything of it as he slides a hand down Dean's face and then trails up, carding his fingers through Dean's sweat-drenched hair as his eyes stay locked on Dean's. He murmurs something in that same foreign language as before, the same language the people in his dream were speaking, and Dean reaches up, gripping his wrist and feeling the long fingers splay out comfortingly along the side of his head. "What are you saying?" he asks in a hoarse voice. "What language is that?"

Castiel's eyes burn bright in the darkness. "Enochian. I was telling you everything would be all right."

"And before? To the –" he can't say it.

Castiel cocks his head slightly and says, "It was a prayer. That someone would watch over his soul as it traveled to the afterlife, wherever that is."

Something occurs to Dean at that moment, something he's never thought to ask before and he drags Castiel's hand out of his hair, letting it go a second later. "How did you get the information, Cas?"

"How to speak Enochian?" A curious blink. "They taught me at the OBIT –"

"How did you get the information at the club? How did you learn that the Grace was different?"

The air in the hotel is hotter than usual, too hot, and Dean wants to strip off all his clothes but first he wants his question to be answered. Abruptly, it seems vitally important, crucial to his wellbeing. How could Cas have learned about it? It doesn't make any sense. The nightmare throbs in the back of his head, pulsing for attention.

"Did you overhear it?" he prompts. "Were people talking about –"

"I saw a man," interrupts Castiel. In an instant, he has transformed. Where before, the teenager looked concerned, now he looks distant and detached, eyes focused somewhere behind Dean's head. "Talking to the man in the purple vest, the one you told me to find."

"You saw a man," Dean repeats.

"Yes."

"And you listened in?"

"No."

There is no further input and Dean shifts forward on the bed, slinging his legs over the side and scooting closer to Cas in the same movement. "Cas –"

"I tried to reach the man in the vest, but they separated and all I could see was the first man. So I followed him, outside to an alleyway. He said his name was Vince." His voice is mechanical, in a way that adds an extra layer of horror to his story that shouldn't be there. He got the information in the end; he was successful. Dean doesn't know why dread is pooling in his stomach.

"And then?" he says.

Castiel's eyes finally slide back to meet Dean's, flat and unblinking. "And then he asked me to perform fellatio on him, and I did. And then he told me about the new way to extract Grace, using live angel subjects, and I left to find you. You know the rest."

Dean can't understand what he's hearing for a second. He wonders if this is still a dream – if soon Castiel will unbutton his shirt and there will be Dean's name carved on it, just like all the others – and then he swallows hard and gets to his feet. "You what?" he asks quietly.

Castiel stares at him without emotion. "I gave a man oral sex in order to obtain necessary information. I did my duty."

He doesn't know what to feel. He should feel horrified or protective or – or anything but instead all he feels is a blank white wall. He mentally reaches out for something, anything – and crashes into the tidal wave of rage left simmering from the brutal scene earlier. It is irrational to feel this, he knows, especially at Cas – if anything, it should be the OBIT's he's furious with, for programming an innocent boy to think this way – but when he looks at Castiel, it is coated with thinly veiled disgust.

"Disobedience," he says, and Castiel moves like the word has struck a chord deep within him.

"I didn't –" he seems to visibly restrain himself from speaking. His shoulders are rigid, jaw set tight defensively, eyes hard. Like a good little soldier receiving a rebuke from his commander.

Dean doesn't know what makes him think of the briefcase – the one he still takes inside every night, out of habit. He doesn't know what forces him to look Castiel in the eye and say quietly, "Wait here," before moving around him to pick it up and lay it on the table. He can barely remember the combination but when he tries it, it works, and suddenly he's staring down at four bottles of pills.

For further obedience.

It is unacceptable that Castiel would stoop to such a thing. And Dean may have never qualified that outright, might not have ever actually said the words, "Hey, Cas, just so you know, if the situation ever comes up, don't give a dude a blowjob for information," but to have a partner willing to do something like – no. It shouldn't have to be clarified. It shouldn't have to be said. He is tense with a rage that does not belong to him and a revulsion that is aimed at the world in general, at the men that sell drugs to innocent children and the men that shove their filthy dicks in place they don't belong and to the men that start wars and do fucking experiments on children, but none of those men are here right now and Castiel is.

He picks letter C. C for Castiel. Turning, he flicks open the cap with his thumb and gives Castiel a hard look. There is something wild and out of control fluttering just underneath his skin, beating in time with his heart, sludging through his veins like a poison.

"Here," he says, holding the open bottle out. It feels like he's bluffing and also that he's not. "Take it."

Slowly, Castiel moves forward and then lifts his palm up, accepting the two capsules Dean shakes out of the bottle. He stares at them like they're about to attack him, and then up at Dean like he's going to attack him. "I won't do it again, Dean," he tells him.

"No," says Dean in a hard voice that he doesn't recognize. "You won't."

He pinpoints it then - knows abruptly where this feeling originated from, how it got here in the pit of his stomach, why it is so easily able to overtake him - and suddenly he is no longer with a boy, but in a dark, blackened dungeon with his partner on the floor and her murderer strung up before Dean. There is a knife in his hand and he knows he could rip him open - take that smirk off, dip it in red, hang it out to dry - and kill him fast, but instead he takes his time, moves slowly and listens to the screams with a sick enjoyment that pounds through him hard. He hadn't recognized his voice then either, when he was asking Alastair to scream louder, when he was asking if he wanted more, you like that, you sick fuck? you get off on that?

Blood dripping through his fingers as he dug into Alastair's bloody flesh - he remembers at one point cutting until he reached a rib and then continuing to cut, to saw away at it, obsessed with the idea of holding Alastair's heart in his hand. He wanted it to continue to beat the whole time, though, that was crucial to him - he wanted to feel it beat against his palm so that when he crushed it, he would feel that too.

They had to pull him away from the corpse. They had to nearly break his fingers to get the knife away from him. They had to lock him in a room by himself for four days until he was fit to see people again without laughing hysterically.

He only comes back to himself at the sound of wretched gasping and looks down to see Castiel on all fours, choking for air.

Abruptly, all his emotions are gone and he is frozen inside.

"Cas?" he manages to get out and reaches a hand out towards him, bending over. "Cas - Cas, oh fuck, what have I done -"

A heart-wrenching scream cuts him off, slicing him to the core as Castiel curls into a ball and screams. He's shaking, and when Dean finally gets the nerve to reach out and touch him, his skin is burning up. Dean is horrified. Why - why would he force a seventeen-year-old to take a pill he knows will be destructive? Created by the OBIT, of course it's going to be a fucking torture device. Dean is the lowest piece of shit on the face of the planet.

"Please - please - Cas," he says, and then remembers the briefcase. He runs to it and then stares down at it, pressing at the sides because there has to be some kind of antidote that came with it, there has to be.

Meanwhile, Cas is still choking behind him.

"I - shit," he says, and in a fit of rage sweeps the briefcase off the table. It crashes to the floor and all four vials spill out, spinning like crazy in all directions but still no antidote to be found - he turns back around and now Cas is dry heaving, not even throwing up just gagging pathetically over the carpet. What to do - what to do - he drops to his knees before Cas and reaches out - and then withdraws when Cas, even in his mangled state, scrambles away from him.

There's nothing he can do, he realizes then. Just wait it out. Just sit on the dirty hotel floor and listen to Castiel try to hold back in his screams - which is almost worse, in its own way, than actually hearing the screams. Listening to the whimpers and moans and jagged little gasps for breaths…

He waits. Hollowed-eyed and aching, he waits.

A/N: All right, so maybe you're thinking that it's a bit ooc for Dean to do something like that to Cas - but he has his reasons, I swear! You're just not going to find out why for a long time. Dean's human, please remember that. He makes mistakes, big ones. Hopefully the next chapter will make up for all this horribly depressing stuff.